Meet the experts

Meet the experts shaping the industry, the Arizent Editorial Team, the Advisory Committee, and esteemed conference faculty during this event on the Center Stage of the Floor.

Transcription:

Dan Hood (00:11):

Feel free to come back. I've got a bunch of questions to start them on, but if you've got specific questions, I'm the main moderator, so if you can give each one of them a mic, that'd be great. Well, we've got Heather Satterly, Kristen Keats, Bob Lewis, and Alan Colton up here. We're very excited.

(00:34)

I want to thank them for all, for being willing to subject themselves to this. Like I said, I have some questions. This is your opportunity to come up. If you've got questions for any of them or questions that you want to put to the panel as a whole, bring them up. Come on up to me or come up to Danielle who's out there. We've got a mic here, but I have some questions. I want to start. We're going to start with a lightning round for each of you. The biggest opportunity you see face, you see accountants for, sorry, let me rephrase that. The biggest opportunity that's out there for accountants.

Allan koltin (01:01):

I've got trouble this time.

Heather Satterly (01:03):

Do I have to go first? She has to go first. My mic isn't on.

Kristen Keats (01:07):

I think even though, is this working? Tighten? No, we fine.

Bob Lewis (01:10):

We have to tighten up everybody. Okay.

Kristen Keats (01:13):

I think the biggest opportunity is artificial intelligence. I mean, I think what we've been hearing about all day, I know we're like we have a, maybe we're a little scared, but I honestly think it's an opportunity because I think we need help. We need all the help we can get in and if the help comes from the robots, I'm fine with that.

Dan Hood (01:30):

Alright, I for one, welcome our new world about overlords. So I'm with you on that one. Heather, do you want to go?

Heather Satterly (01:36):

I'll go now. All right. Can you hear me? No.

Dan Hood (01:39):

We can hear you. Just they watch you for film.

Heather Satterly (01:41):

Oh, I have to come. Thank you. All right. Yeah, this one works. So I think the biggest opportunity is expanding into different service lines of consulting, like technology, and really finding the late needs. Our clients may not yet know that they have and embracing technology in order to meet those needs.

Dan Hood (02:03):

Excellent. Alright. Just give us, is that mic working for you?

Heather Satterly (02:05):

It's working, yes.

Kristen Keats (02:07):

This one. This one's working. Yeah, we're good.

Bob Lewis (02:08):

All right. So there's a lot of ways to go with this, but I'm going to go with embracing the transformation because they're stuck in compliance. They're stuck in the way they're thinking, and they need to change that, whether that's going into artificial intelligence or advisory, expanding offshoring going. Did you do private equity? He does private equity. Yeah. Private equity, all kinds of things.

Dan Hood (02:29):

Excellent. Alan, I didn't know you, I didn't know. Were aware of private equity, but

Allan koltin (02:33):

I think the biggest opportunity is here right now. I think there's going to be a cash bar or open bar. An open bar at all, yeah.

Heather Satterly (02:41):

He wins the lightning round to the audience.

Dan Hood (02:43):

Yes. The bar is.

Allan koltin (02:46):

Just tell him, Dan Hood, it's good at any.

Dan Hood (02:48):

This is your opportunity to lower our profit margins enormously.

Allan koltin (02:51):

Room 2058.

Dan Hood (02:53):

To be clear, you cannot take any of the alcohol home. Let's just be straight about that. All right.

Allan koltin (02:58):

Yeah, I'm sorry. I think the biggest opportunity, everything everybody said is spot on. I think it's to redefine the firm and look into the future of a industry that was pretty set in its ways, and it's a blue ocean. Decide what you want to be.

Dan Hood (03:14):

Excellent. And I agree with that and that's one of the reasons we're excited about this. All the sessions we're having today, the next couple of days is they're going to help you identify ways to do just that. To come up with the firm you want to have. Now I want to reverse it and go the other eye. Going to put you on the spot, Alan, and talk about the biggest challenge facing accounts.

Allan koltin (03:30):

I think the biggest challenge is a little bit of what I said in my presentation earlier today. I think the feeding at the trough right now for so many firms is so good that I think we're blinded, we're blinded to the challenges, the obstacles, and maybe the opportunities going forward. So I think the first thing is to sort of get out of our own way and see long-term planning is something better than where we're going for lunch this weekend. You know.

Dan Hood (03:57):

Need to know where we're going for lunch this weekend. But I understand your prioritizations is correct. Bob biggest challenge. Okay.

Bob Lewis (04:03):

I could say what Alan said, but that makes no sense since he already said it. To me, the core thing is we've got to get our hands on capacity without getting at, it's a, it's like you're on a treadmill. It just keeps moving. They've got to figure out how to get the capacity under control, whether that's shedding clients, raising their fees, offshoring, however they're going to do it. Without that, they won't be able to get a grounding to be able to figure out where they're going to go.

Dan Hood (04:26):

That makes sense to me, Kristen.

Kristen Keats (04:28):

I think.

Dan Hood (04:31):

There's one challenge, I think.

Kristen Keats (04:33):

The mic is a challenge. Yes. I think our challenge that I feel in our firm and what I've been hearing today is that we need to communicate and set some boundaries with our clients. I think we need to educate our clients about what we do and where we add value. And then I think we need to take care of ourselves

Dan Hood (04:52):

And check our hearing. Sorry about that. I can't move far enough back cause I'm going to get feedback, but if anybody has questions, bring them up to me and we'll give them to, to our experts. But Heather, you get to wrap us up on biggest challenges.

Heather Satterly (05:02):

I think our biggest challenge is change, implementing change and keeping up with change and actually going, making it through a successful implementation and keeping our growing and keeping our firm and our business intact.

Dan Hood (05:18):

Excellent. Alright. Next up another speed round though, we can spend a little bit more time on these topics and I'm going to give you a second to think about these two questions. One is one thing every accounting firm should start doing now and one thing they should stop doing now. And while you think about it, I'm going to give you a little text, couple seconds to think about it. Cause I know that's a little bit more of a question, but again, if you have any questions, come on up to me or find Danielle or Seth, let them know your question. They'll bring it up to me because if I go out there, we get that horrible feedback thing. Don't, none of us want that. I apologize for that. We want to have it again. Have you had enough time to think panel Heather?

Heather Satterly (05:56):

Yeah, so I think one thing that every firm needs to start doing is setting aside time for their team to work on innovation and learning new technology and new processes and thinking outside the box. And one thing that firms need to stop doing immediately is billing by the hour.

Dan Hood (06:16):

Nice. You heard it. It's a challenge. And this has the force of law. You have to do that immediately, what she just said.

Heather Satterly (06:24):

Immediately now.

Dan Hood (06:25):

Exactly. Kristen.

Kristen Keats (06:28):

Okay. Along those lines, I think everyone needs to review their prices with their clients, and we were talking about capacity. Really take the time to see what's going on in your firm. I think now is the time to do that, to take a breath, and I think the time that the thing to stop doing is stop working for clients that don't appreciate you and the value that you bring. Yeah,

Dan Hood (06:53):

That's a good one. How about that? How about that? And don't just stop kill them. Kill them dead.

Bob Lewis (07:01):

Okay, I'll start with the stop. All right. They have to stop questioning every possible move and looking at everything is a risk problem and not an opportunity because that is a big issue. Hold on, we have a special breaking moment here going on. I'm going to have to echo the part about the pricing. They need to look at the pricing because they're just stuck in looking at what the clients are afraid they won't pay. Going back to if they won't pay, it's the wrong client or you don't know how to sell them. Those are to me, big, big yes, Yeah.

Dan Hood (07:35):

Yeah.

Allan koltin (07:37):

The problem with going last is it's already been said. I would say what we have to stop doing is running these businesses like 501 C3's, making real decisions, elevating people with the power and authority, not just the title. Too many administrative partners with the title managing partner that can't make a bloody decision on the things that we have to be doing. I think we have to really become destination places for talent. We're not there yet. We're not investing anywhere close to what we should be doing.

Dan Hood (08:14):

Excellent. Very cool. Good stuff. Alright, I have one question from the audience that we'll be talking about for the next six to seven hours, so prepare yourselves for a long speech. That's fine. We're going to talk about the talent shortage and anything you can think of, any advice you have for firms that are facing it, anything you want to think about in terms of what's causing it, how we can stop it, what firms can do about it, what the profession can do about it. Anything you want to talk about because it is such a huge issue and there's so many elements to it, so many moving parts. So Alan, I'm going to hit you first.

Allan koltin (08:47):

Three quick things on the talent shortage. Number one, it's interesting, they all have the bounty program to pay people. If they recruit someone to the firm, they get $500 or a thousand. If it was a hundred thousand dollars person and it was a search firm, they get 35,000. Start paying real money to your own people. We know if we recruit internally, they're going to be good people. That's the first thing I would do. I think the second thing I would do is tear up the rules. The rules are, it's almost like a government where you go like this slow, but sure if you have stars, let them advance. No holds, don't treat everybody the same way.

Dan Hood (09:27):

Gotcha. People don't have to advance in lockstep. Yep. Excellent.

Bob Lewis (09:30):

Huh? You need to embrace it. There's not going away, so you can try and figure out how to outsmart it. Hire people from a different firm. The numbers of people sitting for the exam, keep going down. The number of applicants coming out of college are going down. If you don't embrace the capacity issue right now and go, how do I make the other investments to do these other things offshoring or changing my model, it's just going to slide into the tar pit.

Dan Hood (09:53):

Right. Temporary. There are no temporary solutions because it's a permanent problem.

Bob Lewis (09:57):

No, it's a permanent problem. Not going to go anywhere.

Dan Hood (09:59):

Excellent. Kristen,

Kristen Keats (10:01):

I think we need to make accounting fun. I think all of us are in this profession because we found some kind of joy and satisfaction into it. So let's tap into that. Let's double down on where we find the joy and cultivate that in our staff and it'll grow. It'll flourish if we cultivate it within our staff.

Dan Hood (10:18):

I'm going to, I'm I get to talk now. I'm going to throw in one that fits with that is stop telling war stories. Stop saying, oh my God, the tax season was the worst. I worked forever. I never saw my family. I don't know what my children looked like. It was great. Stop telling those stories because it's driving a large number of people away. No martyrs. Exactly.

Heather Satterly (10:36):

Use tech. All right. No, no, no. I'm holding it right. I was just holding it wrong this whole time and now I have it right.

Dan Hood (10:44):

Wait.

Heather Satterly (10:47):

Wow. So first of all, right size the work week, right? I don't want to work 60, 70 hours. And second of all, we need to get into high schools and colleges and change the curriculum so people know that it's more than just crunching numbers and working late hours. Show them how exciting it is and yes, bring the fun back to accounting because it was so fun 20 years ago.

Dan Hood (11:07):

It really was.

Bob Lewis (11:09):

It's never been fun. Come on, let's call it, it is.

Dan Hood (11:14):

That's an excellent question. There's things that are fun. Alright, I have one last question. First off, thank you all for subjecting yourselves to this. We appreciate it. A lot of spectacular advice. Great answers. One last question. What's one service you think accountants will be offering in 2025 that they're not offering now? And think about it while you think about it. I'm going to let everybody know that this is our last question, and again, I want to thank all. I want to thank Allan and Bob and Kristen and Heather except for subjecting themselves for this and sharing their answers to all these questions. In terms of bringing the fund back, once we have this last answer of the thing that accountants are going to be doing in 2025 that are not now, then we'll be opening the bar. I don't mean that to be an incentive, but keep it short. Heather, do you want to go first?

Heather Satterly (12:00):

Not really, but I will.

Heather Satterly (12:03):

I think they're going to be doing leadership coaching.

Dan Hood (12:06):

Excellent. All right. All right.

Kristen Keats (12:09):

I'm going to go back to the AI. I think it's going to be like AI is pretty smart, but don't, if you don't have that expertise to start with, you don't know if what it's telling you is correct, so I think it'll be assisting clients with utilizing AI somehow in their own business.

Dan Hood (12:24):

Excellent. AI consulting and coaching and that sort of thing. Leadership coaching. All right, Bob.

Bob Lewis (12:28):

I'm going to go with bringing investment banking in house. It's a life cycle. As those clients age out, there's going to be more to replace it and it's huge money for every firm that's doing that properly.

Dan Hood (12:39):

Excellent.

Allan koltin (12:40):

Dan I'll pull it right out of the presentation today. It was the number one service that business owners want and we don't deliver. Its CEO coaching.

Dan Hood (12:48):

Excellent. Alright, well with that, again, thank you all so much. We appreciate it. Great advice, great insights, and we're ready to go.